20110930

i have to admit that since i've come back from werope, i've been a little sluttish with my eating habits, and haven't been eating very healthily. so i thought i would clean out the fridge and freezer, stock up on some beautiful, locally grown hydroponic lettuces, various local and not-so-local organic veg, lots of fruit juices and herbal tisanes, and gain some smug satisfaction that not only had i cleaned out my totally disgusting kitchen, but maybe clean out my totally disgusting body.

...and then i found a ginormous slab of pork belly in the depths of the deep-freeze and i threw out the weekend's plans and had an all-out-no-holds-barred porkfestivus. yeeeeeeaaaaaaaah!!!!

well, no. not really. the slab was only 1.5 kilos; even though it was a major pork-out, i didn't have enough to feed the village and set atop a maypole, but did have enough for a few waymazing sammiches and then some.

the craving for the sandwiches came from not wanting to stand in line at san francisco's ferry building marketplace farmer's market for rolli roti's (in?)famous porchetta sandwich, and from local fave meskla dos's completely infamous PBLT (pork belly, lettuce, and tomato). i haven't had the SF sandwich, although i did overhear some visiting filipinos tell their friends they found it to be overrated in comparison to lechon throughout the philippines. i have had the meskla dos PBLT, which is made with thick, deep-fried strips of pork belly, lots of mayo, iceberg lettuce, and tomato on a slightly sweet hamburger bun. it was decadent and tasty, but i thought the bun, lettuce, and tomato were too soft to hold up against the robust meat strips, and there is an inherent chewiness to pork belly sliced and cooked this way, which is sometimes a little too much for me to appreciate. i enjoy it, but it's a workout to eat. of course, that didn't stop me from trying to cook it this way.

i watched the dudes at meskla dos make a PBLT, took notes on their method carefully: cut two inordinately thick slices off a massive slab of pork belly. chuck in deep-fryer until golden brown. slather an alarming amount of mayo on a soft white bun, top with slivers of tomato and half a leaf of lettuce, arrange deep-fried pork belly--which is twice the weight and over half the volume of everything else--on top, serve with a smile. i cut off two almost half-inch strips of pork belly from a partially frozen slab, sprinkled it with some sea salt and let it stand for about 10 minutes before frying it in an inch or so of oil, until golden brown (about 3-5 minutes). i left them on some paper towel to pointlessly drain off the excess fat as i assembled the rest of the sandwich: ciabatta bread was toasted, slathered on both sides with japanese kewpie mayonnaise, topped with a fistful of green oak and butter lettuces, and fat slabs of beautifully ripe tomato which i sprinkled with pink sea salt and coarsely ground black pepper. the ratio of veg to meat was about equal in this, and the ciabatta, while light, provided more body that the soft bun, and the open-crumbed yet firm texture would soak up the inevitable mayo-tomato juice-pork juice sluice that would come. it did, and provided another dimension of crunchiness to this already crunchy sandwich. unfortunately, the pork belly's almost jerky-like texture still fought it out with its 'wichmates and left me struggling with a sandwich that distintegrated as i ate. i know some people enjoy the interplay but i prefer a slightly more harmonious structure.

i toyed with the idea of makin' mah own bacon, but that didn't last. i went for my tried-and-true: the easiest of peasiest nigel slater recipes for crisp belly pork roast. it involves a little bit of marinating, which gives the pork more flavour, a high roasting temp, which gives the skin its gorgeous and glorious crackling skin, and beautifully tender meat. the only difference between my method and the recipe in the link is that i omitted the five-spice powder, and only did a rudimentary scoring of the skin because dang, where did all my sharp knives go?!

the scoring also helps with cutting the meat into perfect-if-generous sized portions. plenty of tender, garlicky, almost sweet meat, with just a sliver of the rich and decadent crackling. this time the sandwich set-up was perfect: the toasted crunch of the bread played well with the tender crunch of the lettuces and the occasional shardy crunch of the crackling, and the juicy tenderness of the roast pork married with the juicy tenderness of the perfectly ripe tomato. the ciabatta soaked up all of the juicy that went astray and yet kept its structure whilst keeping things tasty and tidy. result! i may never go back to a regular BLT again, let alone a "normal" PBLT.

***

a note: i've read a few posts on other guam blogs that declare "good" tomatoes simply cannot be found on island. not true. they are everywhere when in season, and not necessary in the traditional beefsteak tomato form. the variety that thrives on island is the cherry tomato, which are copious and abundant and as juicy and as acidic/sweet as one would imagine. the best ones that come stateside are also cherry tomatoes, but also super sweet grape tomatoes. if you absolutely must have a larger variety, check with the korean and japanese markets for the air-flown variety from their respective countries--just be prepared to pay a premium. if you need romas, well, you'd probably be SOL on those, but canned san marzanos can occasionally be found in the usually suspected markets.

20110914

and it's in dededo? then it's probably not the love shack. if someone tells you it is, i'd stay well clear. however, if you see a bunch of cars parked on the side of the road, around a shack with smoke coming out of it, it might be a fire (call 9-11 already) or it might be lorwill bbq stand.

i haven't been there in the past six months because every time i've driven by, there hasn't been any sort of parking available; unless things have radically changed in those months, i'm pretty sure the place has remained mostly the same: nothing to look at on the outside, popular for filipino-style barbecue sticks, lots of brown food--medium chunks of various meats in various gravies--in the catering trays.

the most popular items on the menu are the barbecue sticks, which come in pork or chicken, and are marinated, filipino style, in a thin, sweet-salty-soy marinade. lorwill is mostly consistent with their sticks--a generous amount of lean but tender meat, well-seasoned, not too sweet, not too salty, not too knorr/maggi season-y/worcester-y, with possibly just a hint of citrus (:cough: lemon-lime soda :cough:). they do a good job--the meat is very well cooked, slightly charred on the outside, but still moist on the inside, with the marinade penetrating the meat, but not overpowering it. they sell them by the stick (the last time i checked, $1.75/chicken, $1.50/pork), or get a plate with two sticks along with either a scoop of white rice, pancit fried noodles, or filipino-style spaghetti. i think there must be some sort of antibacterial/antifungal/antibiotic property in filipino barbecue marinades*, because i tend to buy the cooked sticks in bulk (yeah, that's me cleaning out the supply), and they last forrrrrrever in the fridge, with little deterioration in reheating. well, maybe not forever. but still.

even though times are tough, the selection from the turo-turo line is seems to get bigger every time i go. generally everything i've gotten from there has been well-cooked, with good quality ingredients, and generous portions. turo-turo literally means "point-point", which is pretty much what you do: point at a dish (or two or three), and you'll get a heap of it served with either two scoops of steamed white rice or a mess of pancit fried noodles. i don't know if there's rhyme or reason behind what comes out every day--i'm guessing what's popular is what they cook, hence, as i mentioned before, lots of meaty and brown. however, there's some good stuff in there--adobo with lots of garlic and gravy, oxtail, bistec with lots of tender onions, a chunky, tomatoey beef stew called caldereta. however, i tend to look for anything with seafood, and if you are lucky you can pick from grilled or fried bangus (milkfish) or tilapia, or fat steaks of bangus in a sour sinigang soup, or maybe some of my favourites: a chinese stir-fry inspired dish of veggies, squid and mussels in a spicy sauce, tilapia halves cooked with lots of vinegar, garlic and onions--called paksiw, similar to escabeche in flavour, squid stewed in its own ink, or mongo (green mung beans) cooked down into a stew with dried shrimp, pork, and bitter melon (all pictured above).

even though i think lorwill does a surprisingly good job with their veggies (a chop suey of sorts is usually available, as is the pinoy version using native vegetables called pinakbet) some of my favourite things on the menu are dishes i rarely get because they are just so, so, sooooo freaking good whilst being so freaking bad for you: lechon kawali and sisig. these are people who know their way around a pig. lechon kawali is the pig of the people, something that appeals to almost everyone: tender pork belly with bits of skin and just enough fat to be sinful included with each chunk, deep-fried so there is shards of skin and a crackly crust that gives way to sweet, moist meat buried within, and served with a homemade lechon sauce that is sweet, slightly tangy and rich with liver, but you'd be hard pressed to ID it as such if i didn't just tell you (eh. no biggie. you need the iron.). sisig might be more of a challenge, if you haven't tried it, but dang, people! try it! sisig is a dish that, depending on how you look at these things, incorporates pig parts that you would rather not think about, or, is an ideal representation of the "nose-to-tail" eating philosophy. the lorwill version uses ears and snouts, which are meticulously cleaned and chopped enough to be indiscernibly anything squeamish (you will not be sniffing at a sniffer, or so you think), and then cooked--several times over, actually--laboriously with vinegar or lemon, ginger, garlic, onions and chili peppers until it all amalgamates into a melting, soft and fatty, cartilage-squeaky, pungent, vibrant, son-of-a-gun sexy pork dish. nibble on some ears, why dontcha.

i like the food here. i don't particularly hang around once i order, but the fact that it is pretty much just a corrugated tin and wood shack with a couple of funky ordering windows obvs doesn't put me off. you are definitely going to hate the parking as much as i do, and please be careful when parking there because there are some very stupid drivers doing some very stupid things at very stupid times right around there. they are open early enough for breakfast (try the tortang talong) and open quite late at night, so you have plenty of time to mosey on over.

lorwill bbq stand
28 (really??) n. marine corps drive, in front of guam home center, next to dededo retail store (whoo, guam! we don't mess around with the names of our businesses, do we?)
dededo.

DISCLAIMER: this is a personal journal with no desires to be anything but. it contains my opinion with occasional fact thrown in; recipes have been tested where noted, in an unairconditioned kitchen in the tropics. YMMV. for my sake and yours, consult a professional!